


When Almost isn't Good Enough

by Kaelynisfree



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Everybody Dies, Gen, No happy endings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 15:31:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7111834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaelynisfree/pseuds/Kaelynisfree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carver never shows up. The horde is faster than him. It swallows up Lothering and the remaining Hawkes before they can even think to leave.</p>
<p>They never had a chance. Neither did anyone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Almost isn't Good Enough

**Author's Note:**

> I wish you could click major character death more than once.

Exhaustion settles in Aveline’s bones. If only she could rest for just a moment. But the horde keeps coming.

She swings her sword, and it’s never felt heavier. Wesley falls, and neither has her heart.

“It’s the taint,” he whispers. He pleads for death. She doesn’t have a knife. Only her sword. She runs him through and wonders if the Maker has ever heard her pleas. She doubts it, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that she keeps going.

When it’s over and he is gone, she stands, her knees wobbling, his shield in her hands. Darkspawn surround her. There is nothing else to do.

She fights for as long as she can and she knows she is about to die when the darkspawn begin to flee and the light turns to shadow under the giant wings of a dragon. Perhaps its the archdemon come to end her suffering.

——

Aveline somehow manages to make it to Kirkwall.

“You continued to fight even though all hope was gone,” the dragon woman says to her before offering her a deal. “I need tenacity like yours.”

She makes it to Kirkwall with the locket, but that is where her luck ends. She struggles for weeks outside the city’s walls until she finally gets inside.

A Guardswoman. But at what cost, she wonders.

Kirkwall is not kind. It never is to anyone.

——

Aveline never meets him, but Varric Tethras feels the same way.

He stands in Dark Town, a small dirty hovel of a clinic, watching Bartrand attempt to strong arm a tired looking mage. A Warden.

“Look,” Varric says, stepping in when he sees his brother about to play the templar card. “I’m sure you’re not in Kirkwall just to help out the needy and the poor. Maybe there is something we could help you with. All we want are the maps. So, quid pro quo?”

Blondie raises an eyebrow. “Now that you mention it…” he starts and Varric steps in front of Bartrand, who still puffs and sneers. That isn’t going to get things done.

———

Bartrand doesn’t show up to the Chantry that night, but Varric follows the Warden inside. Templars greet them.

He hides, because what else can he do? This isn’t his fight. He watches helplessly as the mage, Anders was his name, succumbs to the trap. He’s never seen someone cut down so quickly. The templars really are merciless.

Bartrand later shows Varric the maps he found in the Darktown Clinic, having completely ransacked it while the mage was away.

Varric in no way approves, but it had to be done. Maybe he’ll be free of Bartrand once they expedition is over.

——

They call it the Sword of Mercy, but save the symbol on their armor, the Templars in Kirkwall have none.

Aveline escorts a young Dale to the Alienage after returning the amulet to the elves and leaves her. She has no time to babysit a malificar, but she leaves her with a warning. One that is not heeded well enough.

She visits the alienage and an elf she barely recognizes tells her that the “First” has been taken to the Gallows. That the templars appeared one day and dragged her out of her house.

It was only a matter time, Aveline thinks.

——

“We could use an extra pair of hands, Isabella,” Varric asks the pirate in the Hanged Man, one night, close to the expeditions departure.

“As much as I’d love to spend a month exploring the deep roads,” Isabella says with a grin, downing her mug of ale. “I’ve got some business to take care of.”

Varric sighs, and tips his glass towards her and she clinks his with hers. “Well, don’t get into to much trouble, I want to hear stories when I get back.”

“I promise to have many scandalous and abhorrent tales for you whenever you return from plundering the deep,” she says, laying a small kiss on his cheek.

“Why does everything you say sound absolutely dirty,” he asks, ordering another round for the both of them. They would have this night, full of cheer in merriment.

He’s glad of it, for he never sees her again after he leaves for the roads. He later hears that she fell to an ambush in the chantry. He’s not surprised. Kirkwall always takes the good ones and never gives them back.

——

Aveline follows a suspicious elf around high town on her patrol one evening. He’s got a look on his face and blood on his metal claws. That cannot be a good sign.

She follows him to a dilapidated mansion and makes her way up stairs. She doesn’t notice he’s settled behind her, waiting for her to turn her back.

She can feel his arm phase through her chest and she knows she’s never felt pain like it before. She also knows she will never feel pain like it again. It’s almost a comfort. Almost.

——

It is the last story Varric hears before he leaves on the expedition. An elf mage with white hair is slaughtered by a squad of templars.

_He glowed with magic,_ Varric’s informant assured him. _But he fought with a sword._

It didn’t seem to matter either way. The dead can’t use either, so only thing that did matter was the tale Varric would spin.

——

Varric wonders a lot about gathering tales and stories once the door closes and Bartrand leaves him for dead.

The darkspawn and the deepstalkers care nothing for well-crafted tales, but Varric, ever the optimist, thinks that it will have to do. He literally has nothing else.

When he runs out of bolts, and can only take out enemies by driving the knife on the end of Bianca into them, he starts to wonder what kind of stories he’ll never be able to tell.

They would have been great, he’s sure. Although, they wouldn’t have been about Kirkwall. Kirkwall never had anything good to say. He’s almost glad he doesn’t have to die there. Almost.


End file.
